Until Twilight Falls
by theskyinourhearts
Summary: Raffix is sent stormchasing but falls to the Twilight Woods. As he searches for escape, he looks back on his life in Sanctaphrax.


Raffix awoke to a branch pressing into the small of his back and a blinding pain in his temples. Every bone in his body ached. Fighting to clear his head, he opened his eyes with trepidation.

Thankfully, the light that met his eyes was gentle, a warm amber glow that seemed both beguiling and familiar. With such a soft light, the best idea seemed to be to stay exactly where he was and let the pain seep away from him.

And for a while, that was exactly what he did.

Eventually though, realisation began to dawn upon him. Had everything gone according to plan, he should have been racing backing through the open sky to Sanctaphrax in his stormchaser with a full hold, not lying helplessly in the Twilight Woods.

The icy shudder that ran through his whole body at this realisation temporarily threw off the soporific glow. With an immense effort and a pounding heart, Raffix raised himself. The branch at his back occupied a low spot on an enormous copperwood, whose branches spread outwards in a wide, even canopy. Thanking Sky for this small mercy, he lowered himself to the forest floor.

He inspected his armour. In his years at the Knight's Academy, he had grown accustomed to the heavy metal, had adeptly learnt the subtle changes in movement to compensate for its protective weight.

It had never been quite a second skin, but it had become a comforting bulk. At night, when gales had howled around his tower room, and dark conclusions to stormchasing missions had filled his dreams like rotsucker bile, he had always been glad of his armour.

Now though, it's crumpled valves and twisted piped choked him, pulling at his body like vines from a bloodoak. The ropes that should have secured him to his prowlgrin were nowhere to be seen. Raffix surmised that the armour must have taken the full brunt of his impact, he couldn't remember securing any parawings before darkness fell.

Sure enough, when he looked up to the golden canopy, he could make out the mangled shape of the wings, hanging crumpled high above him.

Far more alarming though, was the dark shape that loomed even higher in the trees.

It was his ship. Or rather, it had been his ship. Now, the hull was cracked in two and the distant blue of the sky shone through the branches it had parted, the futile glimmer of hope.

The flight rock leaned dangerously in its cage. Squinting behind both his glasses and his visor, Raffix could just about make out that the flight cage was damaged. As he watched, metal sprang loose from its bolts and the rock careered upwards and out of sight. The broken bars of the cage were upright, reaching out for it like fingers.

His last definite hope of escape was gone.

Despite the fact that he was utterly alone, Raffix fought back the urge to cry out his frustration. He knew what half-dead, desperate creatures waited in the woods.

With the Snowbird gone for good, there was only one way out. To walk out of the Twilight Woods without losing your reason to the honeyed light and half-heard whispers was a feat few accomplished.

However, Raffix was a knight of the Knights Academy. The years of training, studying and preparation left him unable to simply resign himself to his fate.

Readjusting his crumpled armour, he set off into the woods.

As he walked, the recollection of his flight came back to him, like ratbirds returning to their roost.

Since the macabre procession of doomed flights that took place in Sanctaphrax's long winter, stormchasing missions attracted far less public attention. It was easier to think of it as a missed opportunity for stormphrax when there wasn't a young man's hopeful face still hovering in your memory.

The Hall Master of High Cloud (a short, rather watery man) had seen him off with an earnest handshake and a rather muted speech on Raffix Emilius' bravery and dedication to Sanctaphrax. It was a far cry from the red-faced histrionics of Hax Vostillix.

Above the pair, the sky broiled and coal black clouds twisted and bulged. The very air was alive with suppressed energy, as if filled with snickets.

The years of training, the weight of the expectations, the magnitude of his mission had all rendered him incapable of any response other than a quiet, solemn promise to do his duty 'by Earth and Sky'.

With a firm dig of his heels, he had been carried onto the deck of his skyship by his prowlgrin, Embertus. He had named the beast in honour of the late Hall Master of White Cloud.

When he had done so, he had half-expected to feel the ghost of disapproval from the late knight's protege, Screedius Tollinix.

With the sky now ablaze with lightning above him, Raffix had given Sanctaphrax one last, long look before setting his gaze on the distant horizon.

A pang of guilt hit Raffix in the gut. He had completely forgotten to look for his prowlgrin.

Fearing the worst for the loyal animal, he scanned the area carefully. A few feet away from where he had fallen, there lay a heap of branches. Underneath, the gleam of sleek grey fur caught his eye.

He crossed as quickly as he his battered armour would allow to Embertus' side. He held his hand out in front of the large nostrils, only to feel a wave of nauseous guilt crash against him. He couldn't feel any breath on his palm.

The faithful creature was dead. Raffix heard the words of a High Professor once more saying that it was the highest honour a creature of the Earth could receive, to give its life in the quest for stormphrax.

But Raffix could make out the bent limbs and fur matted with blood beneath the branches and could not bring himself to agree. He tugged at the wood covering the animal but the copperwood was as dense as it was ancient and completely unmovable.

Fighting back a lump in his throat - "Stiff upper lip, Raffix my boy, don't blubber like that" - he rested a hand on the prowlgrin's head. With eyes tightly closed, he murmured, "Goodbye old friend. Sky take your soul to rest."

Climbing once more to his feet with a heavy heart, he navigated his way through broken offshoots of armour to find his compass. After a moment taken to orientate himself, he began walking at a steady pace, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other.

He felt thirst creeping into his throat. It was surprising how easy it was to simply put it from his mind.

The walk was bound to be long and arduous. It was fortunate that the thirst hadn't lasted long, no-one had ever been able to make a report on where water could be found in the woods, or if there was water at all.

For now, he was fine. Training had made his thin and gangly body strong. He may still have been gangly, but he knew there to be a wiry strength in him.

It hadn't always been so. As a child, he had been positively scrawny. The servants used to joke that he wouldn't be able to lift the large books he loved to pore over on rainy afternoons.

He had counted himself lucky that he lived in Sanctaphrax, in his father's chambers. Cousins who did live in Undertown had told him horror stories of push-and-shove roughness of the city. The older cousins delighted in discussing how little an amount of time a weedy, bespectacled boy would last down there.

But brute strength was not really required at the Fountain House School and, in a city of academics, glasses were hardly an oddity.

No, Raffix was happy to live a life of studying. To be sure, he dreamt of sky pirates and duels to the death and daring Deepwoods expeditions like any other boy. They were only dreams though.

Only dreams that is, until his grandfather came to stay with them. Fembrus Emilius, former knight academic and a follower of the old ways. He remembered the earth scholars and days when a professor had to be as quick with a sword as with his quill.

Raffix had been chosen as his protege. The old man had thrust his old sword into his hand and spent many evenings shouting himself hoarse as he taught his grandson to use it.

When practice had finished, Raffix would be regaled with tales of the Earth Scholars and their fearless trips into the Deepwoods in search of knowledge.

Fenbrus was a fearsome but effective teacher and Raffix had felt that the bruised knuckles and scraped knees had been well worth it in the end. His grandfather had died a proud man, happy in the knowledge that his descendant had been accepted into the Knights Academy.

He allowed himself to walk on without thinking. The air was alive with tiny fragments of light here, moving between patterns too rapidly to recognise any of them.

Forgetting momentarily the foolishness of his actions, he paused to watch them. The lights billowed before him, forming a great curve, rendered only visible by its movement…

He knew his grandfather would have been proud of how the Winter Knights had cured to cloudeater. He allowed himself to be proud of it. After the terror of that flight, even stormchasing had seemed nothing to fear.

He remembered the way Maris had looked at Quint when they landed. The look had contained such joy, such affection, such boundless faith. A light was kindled in her eyes and matched by Quint's. He had felt like an intruder just by watching. So he had allowed himself to be guided away by Phin, sharing a small smile.

He wondered where Quint was now.

Later, he had looked for someone with whom he could share such a look. He met with many women, from acolytes to professors. He had even made the obligatory visits to Undertown and gone around the taverns, humming with sticky energy, to talk to the daughters of leaguesmen.

The company he had found had always been pleasant. Women seemed to find him charming and he found these forays a refreshing change from the relentlessly male world of the Knights Academy.

However, Raffix never did share that look with anyone. Conversations never amounted to anything more than pleasant and eventually, one by one, marriages had been formed with men other than him.

He supposed he would have brooded on it, if it hadn't been for his ever-increasing duties as knight academic in waiting. The warm complacency that had settled over Sanctaphrax after the winter's end finally began to dissipate. He had thrown himself into his preparations with great enthusiasm.

He couldn't help but think on how futile that had been. It was almost a comfort that there would be no-one dependant on his return.

The music of the Twilight Woods was louder now. The breeze that could be heard but not felt set the leaves to a gentle rustling. Other sounds that could be made by any forest indistinctly filled the air. An open tavern door perhaps, or a mother singing her child to sleep.

Raffix dimly registered that night should have been falling by now.

Phin had married, of course. He had found his wife after a series of flirtations with Undertown girls on supposedly educational visits to Sanctaphrax. A blonde, robustly cheerful Leaguemaster's daughter who liased with the floating city on her father's behalf, sharp as a gladehawk, but had a smile almost as wide as Phin's own.

Raffix would often join them at their table in the Eightways. The three of them, four when Stope resurfaced from the armoury, would pass the evenings happily. Despite the convivial atmosphere, Raffix was still glad that Phin was happy to spend time with him alone.

When his duties were finished for the day, Phin would walk with Raffix along the viaduct schools. As knight academic in waiting and the swordmaster of the Knights Academy, they would attract respectful nods from the professors of lessor institutions. Sometimes Stope would…

No, that couldn't be right. Stope had left before that became a tradition. He had left to sail with Quint.

He should not have got that confused. It was only difficult to think clearly when everything around him was so warm and beautiful. The leaves of ancient trees shimmered and beckoned him onward like the hands of old friends, despite the lack of breeze.

After reaching once more to wipe the sweat from underneath his cracked visor, Raffix decided to discard the thick amber glass. He had spent at least half an hour without it, there was no point in enduring the irritation for worthless protection. Philius Embertine's warnings echoed in his ears as it thudded to the ground.

Shifting strains of gold now infiltrated Raffix's vision. His feet, once so heavy, were as light as the breezes and zephyrs he had chased to reach here.

Ahead, a glimpse of stark white broke him momentarily from his thoughts. Something bleached and desolate lay ahead.

No...it couldn't be. The thought would have been humiliating back in Sanctaphrax, to make it barely past the boundary of the Twilight Woods, but now Raffix had never thought anything more wonderful in his life.

With great effort, Raffix increased his sluggish pace. He felt as though oozefish from the Mire were already sucking at his feet.

Of course, Raffix Emilius, the privileged son of academics, Sanctaphrax born and bred, had never so much as seen a real oozefish. That was food for the residents of Undertown. He knew of them though.

When he was a mere sub-acolyte in the School of Mist, when stormchasing had been just the stuff of daydreams for a dull lecture, he had made rebellious ventures into the Great Library.

He and his young friends would scramble up into the slender branches of those trees filled with centuries of knowledge, knowledge that was slowly turning to dust. Suppressing nervous laughter, the boys would leaf through scrolls, trying to find the most hideous Deepwoods creature.

One picture had stayed with Raffix. His best friend Alvix...No, Alnax had found it. A scroll, by a man named Septrill (an Earth Scholar, most likely long forgotten), contained a gruesome image of a gnokgoblin caked in thick Mire mud. Her short legs wore what appeared to be white boots, until you noticed the bulbous, baleful eyes of the oozefish. The eyes of the gnokgoblin were closed in exhaustion but her mouth was open in a gaping tunnel.

And now Raffix was desperately seeking to reach the place where such creatures lurked in wait at every step! Better that, than waiting for a death that never came.

This thought galvanised him. He ran at a speed that sent plumes of gold into the air with each step. He ran until his chafing armour grated against him hard enough to draw blood. He ran until his lungs screamed for a reprieve.

He thought only of escape. He let the thought consume him. He thought of Maris and of Stope and of Quint, flying somewhere far above him. He thought of Phin, waiting back in Sanctaphrax. He thought of his friends and the thought would not let him stop until he reached the end.

All of a sudden, something caught at his foot and his long frame was sent sprawling.

Beginning to pick himself up, Raffix did not at first notice what had tripped him.

When he did, the last attempt at a stiff upper lip collapsed and he sank to his knees once more.

Raffix knelt by the large white canopy from a broken wagon, pitted with Mire mud. It had been long abandoned by its owner so there was no-one there to hear the Knight Academic weep.

Raffix would remain there for many hours, tears falling, before he would accept his fate. But he would, eventually, return to his quest. A Knight Academic always did his duty.

Years later, a boy would walk past the rotting man, not seeing him. The armour would have jerked forward, intent on interrogating him, choking him, in a vain attempt to complete his quest.

The rotten man would have forgotten that flesh like the boy's could still bruise and break and taken the life from him. There was no longer any cause to expect reason in him.

However, the set of the boys jaw, the clear eyes, the troubled expression...The decaying man would be taken back to his memories. Not the falsified shadows, full of errors and inexplicable gaps, that the Twilight Woods created, but the true, clear memories of his youth.

For a moment, Raffix Emilius would be in flight once more, cutting through the blue sky, with Sanctaphrax before him and his friends at his back. The fierce exhilaration would fill his mind once more.

Then the golden light would tinge this too, and one more piece of his former life would slip gently out of reach.


End file.
